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This blog serves my columns as an archive, a place to add footnotes,data sources and drafts of my weekly 550 word column for the Sky Hi News.(www.skyhidailynews.com) Often these drafts are posted on my Facebook page, The Muftic Forum.. To learn more about the posting subject, click onto the links at the end of the posting.Blog will be on vacation May 28-June 25 2018, with sporadic to no postings during that time.
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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Even with the disastrous web sign up
system rollout, there are those who are beginning to realize that some of the
conservativecable talk show media did not have it quite right about Obamacare. What must be puzzling to the dedicated
Obamacare and Obama haters is why public approval of Obamacare (the ACA,
Affordable Care Act) actually rose 8 points even as media and they focused on the web system screw ups.In fact,a CNN poll released October 21 three weeks into the web rollout found “ that 53% either support Obamacare or say it's not liberal
enough.”Consumers are beginning to sort
out for themselves what is fact versus the fiction of misspeaking
and fear mongering anti Obamacare forces.

What we hear in Colorado differs
from the federal web sign up plan. Colorado
is one of the fifteen states that opted
to develop and manage their own market place exchanges and web site. The rest of
the states decided to let Uncle Sam do
it and they did a disservice to their own citizens. Even in the first month of
the sign ups state run Obamacare systems have worked much better than the
federal one.

In Colorado, Connect for Health Colorado is managing themarketplace exchanges where consumers can
shop, choose, and enroll . Their web
site is www.connectforhealthco.com. Colorado has also flooded the state with
“navigators”, allowing for in person applications, certifying insurance
agents to sign their customers up, and staffing call centers for telephone sign ups and answering
questions.(1- 855-752-6749.)

The figures provided by the Colorado
system for the first week reveal a
successful operation:

Unique website visitors: 162,941

Calls and chats with Customer Service Center
Representatives: 9,658

Accounts created: 18,174

Average call and chat wait time: 5 minutes 44 seconds

Enrollments: 226

Covered Lives: 305

That enrollments were low this first week is not surprising . Experience with the
Massachusetts system after which Obamacare was patterned, was that most
enrollments did not occur until the last moment. It is a little early to expect
much now anyway since open enrollment lasts for another five months ,
while coverage does not begin until January 1 for early birds who enroll by December 15.

The most popular pages visited on the Colorado
website and questions askedindicate visitors
during the first week were mostly kicking the tires, being curious about whether they qualified for lowered
premiums, how to sign up, and what the sticker
price for them would be.

Also, there are a wide range of
plans from which to choose that require some thought and kitchen table
discussion :One major decision is
whether one should one choose a plan
with low monthly premiums and higher deductibles and co pays or more expensive monthly
premiums with less subsequent out of
pocket expenses.

Making sign up for Obamacare easier,
applicants will not have to fill out
pages of health history because all pre-existing conditions will be covered anyway.Questions about income will be asked and answers verified,
however, to determine if customers are eligible for reduced premiums.

Signing up young, healthy adults is
critical to Obamacare’s financial success. Young people through 29 years old
can get an ultra low cost catastrophic
plan as well as staying on their parents’ plans until they turn 26. There are
those wringing their hands (or anti Obamacare forces are praying) that young people will not sign up because they
will be unable to deal with a faulty computer program. They should neither
fret or hope . Colorado systems are not faulty. Having raised three teenagers and observed three
teenage grandchildren close at hand, my experience is that if anyone has the
ability and patience to apply on line, this computer savvy generation does.
However, “ last minute” is their middle
name even into young adulthood.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The publication of a poll conducted by Esquire Magazine and NBC NEWS should shake up some current misconceptions. Common wisdom has been that our nation is so politically polarized that there is no middle left. This new poll shoots holes in that line of thought. There is a broad sector of American voters that is actually fluid and who mixes and matches and cherry picks sometimes even contradictory positions. Even those who identify themselves with one party or another are not bound in chains to either if one asks people how they vote by issues and how they identity with demographics and peer groups. About 20% on either end of the spectrum are truly bound to one wing or another. Link to a summary of the poll: The New American Center: Why our nation isn’t as divided as we think

It brought to mind a column I wrote in the Nov. 8 2009 Sky Hi Daily News, "It's the middle, stupid". You might for enlightenment consider it the "old American center" and contrast it with the "New American Center" identified in the poll taken exactly four years later in 2013. There have been some changes in issue identification as the issues changed, too, but nonetheless, if this new poll is any indication, the center is alive and well and persuadable and fluid. Polls today also show that while independents leaned for Mitt Romney in 2012, they are now leaning heavily for Democrats in the current budget and shutdown crisis. posting from the Hill> Click Opinion: Independents desert GOP - The Hill - covering Congress, Politics, Political Campaigns and Capitol Hill | TheHill.com)

Some of this 2009 column sounds quaint in 2013, and some of what I predicted
would be "old hat" is still "new hat"..as we now begin to revisit for
the nth time entitlements and health care.

"

It's the middle, stupid.

November 8, 2009

I have been listening to the pundits struggle to find lessons in last Tuesday's vote.

Republicans
won two gubernatorial races, New Jersey and Virginia. A Democrat won an
upstate New York congressional seat in a district that went Republican
for the past 100 years. Local issues like property tax, corruption, and
outside carpet bagging from tea party folks added to confusion in
analyzing the impact of President Obama's coat tails, economic woes, and
other national issues.

What struck me was that all three races
did have something in common: The independents made the difference and
those independents were the moderate middle.

Both winning
candidates for governor positioned themselves as problem solvers and
pragmatists, not as ideologues, in spite of their very conservative
credentials. They focused on issues concerning jobs and the economy. In
upstate New York, the radical tea party right ran a conservative
candidate who succeeded in knocking out a moderate Republican. Enough
moderates, who resented the carpet bagging Conservative and the hard
core social and economic ideology he represented, voted Democrat and the
Democrat won. In New Jersey, an independent in the race found his votes
swinging Republican at the last moment, accounting for the Republican's
5 percent margin of victory.

I am sometimes inspired by
Murphy's Law (“what can go wrong will go wrong”) so I have devised my
own list of laws of politics based on last Tuesday's elections.

Law
1: Whatever the issues, whenever a third party enters the race, the
independents determine the outcome. This was true of both the New Jersey
and New York races.

Law 2: Independents are not ideologically
loyal. Obama had carried the independents in New Jersey and Virginia in
2008. In New York state, given the registered voter data, some
Republicans appeared to have voted Democratic.

Law 3:
Independents are pragmatists. Independents vote for the candidate who
will fix what hurts them. This is a switch from the independents of yore
who emerged after World War II with optimism about the future. My
independent minded parents used to say: We vote for the person, not for
the party. Fear and pessimism have replaced optimism lately: Now we vote
for the person we think will fix what hurts or scares us.

The
pragmatists dominate our current political climate in spite of the
shrillness of talk show radicals. The Obama win in 2008 was an
expression of belief that he represented hope he would fix pain felt by a
majority of voters … ranging from getting us out of an unpopular war,
to the stock market crash, to health care, to job loss ( then a rust
belt issue). The danger for Obama is that he may not be able to deliver
on the hopes that were raised by 2012. Defeat at the polls is the price a
pragmatist pays for failure.

Law 4: What independents see as the
source of their pain can change at warp speed. The Wall Street crash,
its unbridled greed and bailouts were not even on tongue tips before
September 2008. The unemployment problem grew from a regional concern to
a national one by inauguration date. Health care dominated the
presidential primary and general election debates ahead of worries about
the economy and getting out of Iraq was the other hot potato.

Law
5: Today's solutions may not address tomorrow's problems. You just
cannot assume the same lesson will apply in two or four years from now.
See Law 4. It is like building a house on a foundation of sand. It looks
great today, but tomorrow, the sands may shift. To appeal to
independents, proposed solutions have got to address the problem of the
day that concerns them.

When the gross domestic product grows
again as it did last quarter, jobs are usually created about six to nine
months later. The mood of the voters could be different a year from now
if the economy follows economists' predictions about the timing of
recovery. So far, the economists have been generally correct. The
stimulus and bailout issues will then be old hat.

If health care
reform gets through Congress before the mid-term campaign season begins
this January, the issue will no longer be on the front burner. Most
people will see no tax increases and most will still have their employer
based insurance. Medicare benefits will not have been affected. The
uninsured, small business employees, and consumers will see some
improvements more quickly, though.

Regarding Afghanistan, it is
likely the path to reaching any goal might not be clear at all. Obama
must show some hope of success here or face grief from independents who
are neither dedicated doves nor hawks.

Call the independents “the middle,” or “ pragmatists,” the message to ideologues is the same: Ignore them at your peril."(end 2009 column)

Sunday, October 13, 2013

The Obamacare (Affordable
Care Act, ACA) controversy has been
rolled into reforming entitlements as
part of the dealing with the White House on raising the debt ceiling.and
deficit reduction. However, the GOP’s rationale
for defunding, repealing, delaying or sabotaging the ACA because it would increase the deficit is bogus. In fact, the GOP proposals would add to the deficit .

The GOP House of
Representatives has reduced their conditions
to ending the shutdown or raising the debt ceiling from defunding the ACA to delaying it a year to
just removing the tax on medical
devices, or removing the penalty on individuals who fail to sign
up for insurance by March 31. Rep. Paul Ryan did not even mention the ACA in an
op-ed in the New York Times as he tried to move the GOP goal to reforming all entitlements as a debt ceiling and deficit reducing bargaining chip.

Tea Party die hards still want to include the ACA in the
entitlement discussion. . To tie the ACA
to deficit negotiations is nonsensical. The Congressional Budget Office said the
ACA would decrease the deficit by $109 billion over ten years and that
the ACA added 12 years to the life of Medicare. The ACA has a “pay for” built in through a
variety of mechanisms: reducing the
overpayment to insurers for coverage and holding them to no more than 20% of
premiums for overhead; reducing payments to hospitals because they no longer
have to absorb the costs of treating uninsured patients who could not pay their
bills. The previously uninsured now have affordable access to insurance. Competition within the marketplace exchanges
are resulting in premiums which are even 16% lower than
original predictions. Unnecessary but
expensive subsidies to Medicare Advantage private insurer administrators have
ended. Some taxes and penalties will
also produce revenue.

Some fear that
increasing the debt limit is a go ahead to go into debt more in the future.
Lifting the debt limit does not approve more expenditures than Congress has already
approved. There are those that contend
that if the debt limit increase is not approved, nothing will happen.. There is no one in the business community or
Wall Street or the prime funders of the Tea Party movement,
the Koch Brothers, who agree with that.

What the GOP advocates could make the deficit worse. For example, removing the tax on medical
devices could add to the
deficit by at least $29 billion in lost revenue over 10
years. Another “pay for” should be
included in any deal to maintain the ACA’s contribution to deficit reduction..
Some deal is likely since the President
says it is not a “core” part of the ACA.

Another GOP proposal, to
delay the penalties associated with the mandate for young people to sign up is a
“core” attack on the ACA. Not bringing the younger and healthy into the
insurance pool would sabotage the affordability of covering pre-existing conditions because that
is what makes that part of the ACA affordable.
The GOP argues the
President let large businesses off the hook for a year from being fined for not
having health insurance for their employees. The difference is the impact on
the cost of the ACA. Only a very small percent of large businesses do not
already provide employee insurance.

Using
computer glitches in the federal web site as a reason to delay is a weak argument since computer software can be fixed and administrators have until March 31, 2014 . Fourteen states
like Colorado that opted to run their own systems have better results than the states who relied on the federal system. .
Sign up by computer Is not the only method to enroll.. Marketplace exchanges provide telephone and in
person enrollment as alternatives to on line sign ups.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Is defunding or
delaying the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, worth shutting down the
government?Polls are showing 72% of Americans
do not believe it is.The polls were taken before the marketplace exchanges were
opened October 1that gaveconsumers a hands on chance to separate factfrom GOP fear hyping fiction. Many consumers liked
what they saw. In the first three days
of a six months enrollment period, 10,000 opened accounts to get insurance with the Colorado administered exchanges.

A minority group of around 40 Tea Party House members were able to engineer the
shutdown. How did they pull it off andcan they do it again?Thanksto the Hastert rule and
gerrymandering they did, can, and are . They are adding to theirsurrender terms by refusing to increase the
debt limit. Failure to raise the debit limitthreatens to undermine our
nation’s economy by leading
to default on payments for bills already obligated and due .

The 250 furloughed BLM
, National Park, federal conservation,
and Forest Service employees are only some of the victims in Grand County.
Their families lost buying power. Businesses had also hoped the last days of the tourist season,
fall colors and elk rut viewing, would bring in some money but the tourist season’s end is already upon us.

If the entire House
of Representatives had been allowed to
vote, a resolution to reopen and fund the government
without defunding the ACA would have passed right away. However aminority
group in the GOP caucus, the Tea Party, wasdetermined to use the strategy of linking the
issue of continuing to fund thegovernment to defunding or delaying the ACA. This kept any “clean” bill, one without reference to the ACA, from being voted upon by the
entire House. How far they will go on the debt limit threat is yet to be seen.

One culprit that
allows this to happen is a
rule of the GOP caucus in the House of Representatives, the
Hastert Rule.Unless the majority of the
House GOP caucus agrees, a bill will not come up for a vote of a whole House .
This rulekeeps a
coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats from joining together to vote for a
bill a faction of the GOP opposes.GOP Speaker John Boehner chose to invoke
the Hastert Rule, some observers charge, because if he did not , the Tea Party
would keep him frombeingre- elected Speaker again.

Another culprit is the recent redistricting process that enabled state legislatures dominated by the
GOPto gerrymander Congressional district
boundaries to make more districts
overwhelmingly Republican in a general election. These “safe” districts mean that any member of the GOP running for Congress who does not follow the Tea Party’s linecould face a challenge from them in a primary battle. The implied or real threat was enough to give the Tea Party
additional votes of House members who may
not have been in 100% agreement with a
shutdown, making the Tea Party the
majority in the House GOP caucus.

Knowing in advance that the Senate Democrats and the
President would stop or veto any bill that defunded, delayed or sabotaged the ACA , the House GOP
controlled by the Tea Partycontinued sending bills to the Senate with those poison pills
and the threat to shutdown the government. Failing to bully the President to
ditch the ACA, his signature piece of
legislation,they then tried to divide
their opposition by offering to fund a few popular programs, including reopening
national parks , while excluding other federal agencies, including some in
Grand County. To open the government for all services and
agencies, a vote by the entire House is
all that is needed.

About Me

Felicia Muftic is a political columnist with the Sky Hi Daily News, Grand County, Colorado. She writes on current events from a pragmatic, fact based, reasoned perspective.
Felicia has nearly 50 years of involvement in politics, finance,and consumer affairs as either a fly on the wall in international, national, state and local levels or a participant.
Parallel to all of this is intense involvement for over 50 years in the the political process, serving in both cabinet and staff in the administration of Mayor Federico Pena . Partially educated in Europe and married to physician-refugee from the Balkans, her interests are not confined to US domestic problems, but she also has a world view and experiences which are often reflected in her columns.
Felicia Muftic es un columnista político del diario Sky News Hola, Grand County, Colorado. Felicia tiene casi 50 años de participación en la política, las finanzas y de asuntos del consumidor, ya sea como una mosca en la pared en la internacional, nacional, estatal y local o de un participante. Para más información, visite www.mufticforum.com